it's about time$

The patience of catholic college faculty and administrators is nearly limitless. Indeed, how many times have your heard them complain about the lack of respect and understanding secularists display about the purpose and the methods of the catholic college? Your Uncle Di has been listening for 40 years and hasn't heard a peep.

Their patience has been exemplary since the 1967 Land O' Lakes manifesto and it is finally paying off in some parts of the United States. Just the other day we read that the state that houses not one, but two Jesuit schools of higher learning (St Louis University and Rockhurst) has finally seen the light:

St. Louis University, a Jesuit school proud of its Catholic (sic) heritage, celebrated a legal victory last week that affirmed it is not controlled by the Catholic church (sic) or by its Catholic (sic) beliefs.

The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the school in handing down a decision that the city of St. Louis did not violate state and federal constitutions by granting the university $8 million in tax increment financing for its new arena.

chop : because....

In a 6-1 decision, the court said SLU "is not controlled by a religious creed."

Just so. It's about time that the US courts caught up with our catholic colleges and these long suffering faculty and administrators.

To perform its teaching and research functions effectively the Catholic (sic) university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.

[chop]

The student must come to a basic understanding of the actual world in which he lives today. This means that the intellectual campus of a Catholic (sic) university has no boundaries and no barriers.

Glad to know that town & gown are at last on the same page when it comes to knowing what's catholic. Now we'll just have to wait for the "Catholic" to go lower case in all those college fund raising letters to grandma and Aunt Betty. Given that the catholic college happily sold out its governing principles on Catholic education years ago to "perform its teaching and research functions... and to raise lots of cash" (this last fragment was stricken from the final draft), there's little need to fret about the case of $ changing any time soon.

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Is this a corporate repitition of Peter's denial of Jesus? Catholic universities are so in name only. I have friends who sent their sons to LMU in Los Angeles. The men have left the Church. Same applies to Santa Clara. Are the Jesuits to blame for teaching some kind of liberal nonsense? One might be safer at a state run school. Let us hope that these people -the schools and the dropouts - come to their senses. Pray for them.

Posted by: -
Apr. 25, 2007 12:46 PM ET USA

If only the Apostolic Nuncio were simply to announce, "The following schools can no longer be considered Catholic and are a danger to the faith of anyone who attends them: Notre Dame, Washington U, Depaul U, etc., ad infinitum." Now that we've abandoned the Index of Forbidden Books, it would be so helpful to have the Index of Forbidden Schools, an index far easier to establish and maintain, btw.
Awake, O Lord, why are you asleep? Rise up and come to our assistance! From scandal deliver us

Posted by: -
Apr. 25, 2007 12:13 AM ET USA

This explains why I saw on the SLU campus a plethora of gay rights placards and activist anti-Catholic activities allowed as "clubs" and the never ending self-agrandizing build out of the university and look-at-me Catholic [sic] leader. Unfortunately it is in my hometown. Shameful and scandalous. Who can recall the Catholic name-tag? Who can walk tall and carry a big mandatum stick? Can a Catholic [sic] school or even a whole order be given an interdict? If so, by whom, local bishop or Vatican?

Posted by: -
Apr. 24, 2007 11:12 PM ET USA

A friend of mine asked when he heard about this story, what will the Holy See do? Unfortunately I said, given the past track record of the Holy See re enforcing Ex Corde Ecclesiae, nothing. The corruption in the Society of Jesus is producing this kind of "fruit." This is no will on the part of ecclesiastical authority to do anything about it.

Posted by: -
Apr. 24, 2007 10:45 AM ET USA

Medicis Mentis:
As someone once asked in some old book that focused on an archaic set of patriarchal myths: "What is Truth?"

Posted by: -
Apr. 24, 2007 10:15 AM ET USA

"is not controlled by a religious creed"
That statement says it all!
Then why do they call themselves Catholic and what gives them the right to call themselves Jesuit.
Let them open on the free market as a private university with trying to sell themselves as something their not.
I can hear the recruiters now, 'Well, we are almost Catholic. No boundaries, no barriers, no nothin'.

Posted by: -
Apr. 24, 2007 7:20 AM ET USA

"This means that the intellectual campus of a Catholic university has no boundaries and no barriers." This is a logical fallacy on the order of "There is no Truth." I think that they applied the same truth to seminaries. The arrogance of the writers of the Statement rivals our present-day complacency. I'm not sure which is worse. Bishops, help already!

Posted by: -
Apr. 24, 2007 7:09 AM ET USA

How very sad that these once Catholic colleges and universities sold their birthright for federal funding in 1967. Led by Fr. Hesburg of Norte Dame they betrayed the very principles of Catholic education that they were sworn to uphold. St. Louis University is just the first domino to fall in this despicable litany of betrayal. We must band together and stop funding these institutions which have abandoned their heritage.

Posted by: -
Apr. 23, 2007 9:36 PM ET USA

The number of true Catholic Colleges and Universities in the USA can, unfortunately, be counted on the fingers of both hands. The Jesuit (sic) university from which I graduated many years ago is not one of them. Since they have not even had the courtesy of responding to my letter of some years ago asking if they adhere to the mandatum, I have not had the courtesy of responding to their numerous requests for donations---and I have told them why my funds will go elsewhere.

Posted by: -
Apr. 23, 2007 7:23 PM ET USA

The Jesuits are endorsing what we have known for years; their colleges are no longer Catholic.
People who are very Catholic send their kids to non Catholic schools with good Newman Clubs because the odds of losing one's faith at some of these "Catholic" colleges is very high.

Posted by: -
Apr. 23, 2007 7:01 PM ET USA

And Jesuit (sic) superiors (sic) ask the question why there are so few Jesuit (sic) vocations. What normal male would sign on to study many years in order to serve in such an institution? Oh, perhaps I beg the question.
These formerly Jesuit institutions have sold their ignatian birthright for a pot of grant money.

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